it's only ever love
by king.needlemouse
Summary: Silver struggles to face the fact that he never quite got over his past traumas. Sonic is here to help.


**HJGHKFDJHK SO this is a birthday present for my best buddy tekina-fiction! uwu enjoy some soft (angsty) sonilver bc u made me soft for this ship and now i can't stop. ilu dude :)**

* * *

It's all just bursting at the seams.

The walls start to groan and crumble all around him, the massive machine before them whining pitifully as cogs spring out of place and its metal shell caves in on itself. And then there is just heat—burning, insatiable, and everywhere, exploding from the failing, sad thing and engulfing the entire room.

His vision is flooded with red and he stutters on his breath as the oxygen barely makes it down his throat.

"Silver!"

He's frozen on the spot, a useless mannequin, gazing tiredly up at the ceiling as it starts to splinter and come crashing down upon them in massive clumps of concrete and metal. Lethargically, he tips his head back down to scan his surroundings. Sonic has a foot planted on the corpse of his robotic double, twitching eerily beneath him. There are others—Tails and Amy and Shadow and Blaze—watching in a mutual awe as everything falls apart completely.

"_Silver!_" it comes again, louder; _that voice._ He blinks and looks back to Sonic, because that's where it came from. Sonic stares at him horrifyingly, desperately, glancing frantically up at the ceiling crumbling above them and the wreckage caving in around them and the flames that crawl by silently; a cage of death. "What are you waiting for?! _Do something!_"

His vision teeters out of focus as he struggles to keep his eyes open. There's so much brightness all around them, so much warmth; if they weren't stuck in the wake of Eggman's destroyed base, he'd almost think he was lost in some fever dream.

_—some dream where he's shackled to the ground, coarse and hardened beneath his feet, blackened with soot, and he's all alone, with pools of viscous magma swirling around at the base of the cliffs, and a cyclone of fire and destruction surging over him, too powerful for him to ever stop, because what chance did he even have, Iblis was too strong—_

Hands latch onto his shoulders and he shakes himself in a daze, trying to concentrate on the fuzzy blue shape that's overtaken his field of vision. The person yells at him, "Silver, what are you doing?!"

And cold washes over him.

Silver shoves the body away, not something spiteful, more of a protective measure than anything. He clenches his jaw and lifts his hands up in the air, shuddering as raw energy trickles down his veins into what feels like an untamable wave of burning electricity by the time it reaches his palms.

Teal light pulsates from him and the whole building tremors. There's a massive piece of ceiling falling like a meteor directly above them, and it's going to hit him, it's going to hit _Sonic—_

Everything freezes in a steady glow of turquoise.

And he sees stars.

* * *

The bandages feel a little patronizing. The dim lighting, hearty stews, painkillers? Sure, fine, he gets it. He needs bed rest. But now they're wrapping flimsy, cloth bandages around his palms, as if that'll do anything.

It does not, for the record—it does nothing except muffle the constant blue-green glow that permeates from the runes etched into his hands.

Silver says as much, and Tails only smiles at him pitifully. "We just wanna make sure you get better, man. The sooner you're back on your feet, the sooner this'll all be over."

"My powers come from within," he insists, using his already-bandaged hand to tap his skull in demonstration, while the fox continues to wrap his other one. "These are pointless."

Tails shrugs. "You did say you've been getting hand cramps since they stopped working. Besides," he leans forward a little, glancing around with a smile on his face like he wants to make sure nobody else will hear this, "just between you and me, Sonic's been worried sick about you. This was his idea—the bandages."

Silver rolls his eyes at him while the kid just giggles, before scratching the back of his neck and heading back to the door.

"I'm gonna go help Amy with dinner. Give us a holler if you need anything!"

He nods compliantly, absently, as Tails disappears out the bedroom door, and squeezes his blankets. His fingers throb but he doesn't let go.

* * *

"So, still no idea what the deal is, huh?"

Silver frowns and flexes his hands, that annoying, painful twinge in them ringing true. "Not really, no. This has never happened before."

Sonic kicks his feet up from where he lounges on the couch, this relaxed, blasé look on his face. "Weird. Your powers are connected to Chaos or somethin', right? Maybe they just need time to… recharge. The emeralds get like that sometimes, I guess. They always run away after you use 'em too much."

"I think I just—" he considers how to find the right words, somewhere between not downplaying this but also not eliciting frantic worry. "Uh. Overextended myself, what with trying to hold up an entire building."

A smirk splits across Sonic's face, and he thumbs his nose. "Yeah, that'll do it." The grin falters just a smidge and sinks into something of mild concern, and Silver hasn't quite learned how to read minds yet but he can tell he's thinking something along the lines of, _this isn't the first time you've overextended yourself._

Silver pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, a long, tired thing.

"Maybe this is karma," Sonic muses. "Some sorta sign that's tellin' you to chill out for a bit."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he replies, and it comes out a little more snappy than he intended, but Sonic doesn't seem bothered.

The hero stares up at the ceiling, looking cautious. "Well… You kinda have this bad habit of placing the weight of the world on your shoulders." That clever little smirk returns and Silver automatically ignores the flutter in his chest at the sight of it. "Let me tell you, dude, not a good idea. You've got scrawny shoulders, anyway."

"You aren't much better."

"Yeah," Sonic nods. "But I also know that I need to let my friends help me out sometimes, too. And I never dealt with, uh, world-ending fire monsters for several years straight, but you get my point."

Something uneasy stirs in Silver's gut, and he grips the arms of his chair. There's a vague irritation that nips at him in the back of his head, at the numb feeling of his palms from being wrapped up in bandages for so long. A glimmer of flames dance across his vision and it's gone in an instant.

"Speaking of—maybe I should head back home."

Sonic is instantly on his feet, hands on his hips. "Nuh-uh, you aren't goin' anywhere, dude. Not to whatever hellish future you'll see next, and certainly not when you're still completely defenseless."

"I'm not completely d—"

"Try lifting up this cup."

Silver blinks. "What?"

The blue hedgehog gestures to the coffee table, where an empty water glass rests on a coaster. It looks like it's been there a while; it should probably be washed. Silver sits up a little and stares at it, idly, before laughing at the absurdity of Sonic's request as it starts to sink in.

Sonic doesn't falter, though, and simply raises his brows expectantly. "Well? Can ya'?"

His dry laughter dies off as he scowls and lifts a single hand, aiming his bandaged palm at the glass. "Of course I can."

Silence drifts in between them as they both stop to look at it. Silver narrows his eyes and concentrates, an all-too-familiar headache returning to him, scraping at the insides of his skull painstakingly. Teal light flickers and spits around the edges of the glass, and it starts to jostle, but it never raises into the air like he intends for it to.

His hand is shaking.

And then there's a loud snap of something, and blue lightning flashes before the two as the glass sways too far to one side and falls to the ground, shattering into a million little flecks of glass. A sharp pain pierces into Silver's palm, like a knife driving itself right through his hand. He flinches, instinctively, cradling it close with his other hand and massaging it tentatively.

"Ow. _Shit._"

Sonic does nothing other than look down at the sea of glass, and then he's gone in a flash of blue and back in another, but this time with a broom. He starts sweeping it up, never meeting Silver's gaze, but there's this air of_ I told you so _wafting off of him in a reeking stench. At least he's quiet enough to let Silver take a moment to recover his pride.

"… Look, man," he eventually says, as he brushes all of the shards into a neat little pile. "I know it sucks, but you clearly aren't ready to just jump back into action. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing! Now you have an excuse to go on vacay for a bit, right?"

Silver rubs his arm. "I mean, I guess."

"Yeah!" Sonic looks back up to meet his gaze, his jade eyes absolutely dazzling. He winks, a playful smile tugging at his lips. "And you'll be happy to learn that I happen to be an excellent tour guide."

* * *

After snatching a certain miraculous blue gem from his bedroom and uttering the magic words, they're instantly across the entire planet. Silver swoons for a moment, his vision spotty like someone flashed a camera in his eyes from the Chaos Control, while his body attempts to stabilize itself after just rematerializing from thin air.

He realizes, with a fatal stirring of butterflies in his stomach, that he's still holding Sonic's hand. The hero doesn't really seem to mind, or notice; he's too busy scanning their surroundings and looking everywhere except at Silver or their held hands. They're currently encased in an endless chasm of trees and foliage.

Reluctantly, because he isn't really sure how else to go about this, Silver wrenches his hand away. Sonic jostles slightly and continues to avert eye contact, although now it seems more deliberate, as he tucks the emerald into his quills and scans the treetops bristling in the gentle breeze.

"You ever been here before?" is what he says, as though that confusing situation hadn't just happened. Maybe there wasn't anything confusing about it, though—maybe Silver was just doing that thing again where he over-thinks everything and gets awkward around Sonic because _how exactly is he supposed to just_ not _be awkward around Sonic, when he's all pretty and bright and loud and funny—_

A hand waves in front of his face. Silver blinks, and Sonic is laughing a little.

"You do that a lot," the speedster comments, smiling warmly at him. Silver frowns, because he doesn't really know what he's talking about, so Sonic elaborates. "Space out, I mean."

"Oh. Sorry."

Sonic shakes his head. "No worries. Just means you've got a lot to think about in that big head of yours." When there is no reply, the hero decides to survey the area once more, and he repeats, "So, you ever been here?"

Upon further inspection, Silver can easily deduce that _no,_ he's never been here. He hasn't been in this particular point in time—the current timestream, in which Sonic and all of his friends currently preside—very often, at all. Only briefly, recently, for the birthday party where that big time monster showed up, and—and all those years ago, when they'd first met, and Mephiles was still around and so was Ibl—

His lungs burn in his chest and Silver has to remind himself to breathe. He worries his lip.

"No, I haven't," is what he settles on. Better not to remind Sonic of how he's normally stuck in apocalyptic futures, frantically trying to eradicate them until another impossibly horrible scenario inevitably shows up in its place.

Sonic just grins at him, that breathtaking, amazing smile, and grabs his hand again, tugging him along. Silver's heart does all sorts of flips and somersaults in his chest. _Chaos, you could be a gymnast, _some voice sneers at him in the back of his head, that sounds suspiciously like Blaze. She was always good at acting as his conscience.

"You're gonna love it!"

Incidentally, as soon as they emerge from the dark forest, Silver knows immediately that he does, indeed, love it.

It's some sort of city, and the sun is already setting here which further signifies to him that they're a great deal away from home. But the sunset only feeds into the mellow, honeyed ambiance that radiates across the whole settlement; it paints it in a muted film of gold and pink hues.

Being so late, not many people roam the streets, although there are a few that still wander about, as well as some children that frolic around. A narrow canal cuts through the center of the city, some lily pads drifting atop its surface, and several market stalls line either side, each adorning a plethora of shimmering red lanterns. In the far back, Silver can see the dim outline of a rocky cliff side, and he can hear the faint rush of a waterfall.

"What is this place?" he wonders, absolutely fascinated by the warm glows of the lanterns dotting every street corner and vender's shop.

Sonic is still clutching his hand, dragging him along but slowing significantly so they can both gawk at the beautiful scenery. "A small town in Chun-nan. I came here a long time ago on one of my adventures, but it's just—so nice here. I visit a lot."

"Chun-nan," Silver echoes. They stop to gaze down at the pond, where some fat, orange fish swish around lazily. "Never heard of it."

He tries not to think about how this amazing, quaint little city will always just become a pile of rubble and flames along with the rest of the world, by the time Silver always finds it.

His palms ache. Silver grimaces and pulls away from Sonic, who seems slightly more perturbed by the action than before; he still does nothing other than stare at the psychic warily for a few seconds, though.

When he rubs his hands worriedly, Sonic decides to voice his concern.

"Sorry. They still hurt really bad?"

Silver shrugs and he tries to keep his posture relaxed, but his shoulders feel so tense it almost hurts and his headache is still pounding at the inside of his skull. "Yeah."

Sonic hesitates for a moment, and then grabs Silver again—this time by the wrist, with a much looser grip—and he pulls him along the stone walkway, parallel to the canal, until the stone is replaced with dewy grass and they're right beside the mouth of it, where it opens into a sizeable pond with the waterfall resting just on its brim. The two hedgehogs settle down into the grass, gazing into the twinkling waters and watching flashes of orange fish flitter by in the moonlight.

He considers briefly, and then dips his bare fingers into the water, his gloves long discarded since back when he'd been put on bed rest by all of his friends. It's cold, but not frigid—just a subtle chill that feels soothing as it soaks into his fur and teases the bandages on his palms. Silver frowns, before lifting his hands up to peel them off, so he can submerge his entire hands.

Sonic's breath hitches. "Silv. Be careful."

"It's fine," he says with the shake of his head, "they're itchy anyways."

With something almost like reluctance, he feels Sonic withdraw his hold on his wrist, as he instead opts to scoot closer beside him, so their shoulders just barely brush. Silver feels a warmth curl up in his chest and he has to feign the urge to lean against the blue teen.

As he dips his hands back into the pond, he relishes in the feel of the quiet current that presses against his bare palms, and the sharp iciness against the turquoise runes engraved into his skin. It acts like a temporary balm to the fire raging within. Silver sighs tiredly and lets his eyes fall shut as he attempts to drown out his anxieties for just a couple minutes, and focus on the steady rush of the water instead.

They sit there for what must be a long time, as Silver starts drifting in and out of a light doze, but Sonic doesn't seem to mind. He also doesn't seem to mind when the psychic just so happens to lean some of his weight against his side—but maybe he's just taking pity on him.

Silver wrinkles his nose and pushes that thought away before he can dwell on it.

Eventually the speedster finally speaks, as he so brazenly announces, "I'm getting kinda hungry. You?"

He blinks open his eyes and is greeted by the stark blackness of nighttime. Their surroundings are just barely illuminated by the red lanterns back in the village, and the moon up above. "I could eat."

Sonic hops eagerly to his feet. "Cool. I know just the place."

They grasp hands again just as Silver brings himself to stand as well, and they're instantly engulfed in a brilliant blue light before their surroundings fade to nothing once more.

* * *

The quiet, serene night of Chun-nan is immediately smothered in an explosion of sound. Silver loses his footing as light bursts across the sky from the midday sun and he's greeted by stuffy crowds and an army of rumbling cars and a forest of skyscrapers that tower over them. When he looks to Sonic, he is vaguely bemused to see the speedster not at all bothered, but rather bearing a wide, fond grin.

"Sorry," he says over the all of the ruckus, grabbing the younger boy and dragging him through the congested streets to try and find somewhere more private. "Probably should've given more warning!"

Silver squints for a few seconds as his vision adjusts to the sharp contrast in lighting. "S'fine!"

They eventually reach a street corner that happens to be slightly less crowded and noisy, so they stop to face each other.

"Welcome to Empire City!" Sonic exclaims, his eyes so verdantly bright that Silver has to stop himself from getting lost in them like the lovesick fool he is. "It's real nice here. A bit pricier than, say, Station Square, but-!" he turns to gesture behind them to the hotdog vender just a few feet away, "You can never go wrong with a cheap chilidog."

He takes a long, deep breath, and tries to ignore all of the yelling and loudness and crowds and—and the buildings, looming over him like ravenous beasts, so horribly _there_ that every time he closes his eyes he sees glimpses of flames again, roaring all around as they consume the whole city in a violent rampage—

"Hey."

Silver startles. "Sorry, what?"

"Just asking what you wanted," Sonic says, gesturing to the vender that's now right before them. He purses his lips and narrows his eyes. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just spaced out for a sec." He swallows, and glances awkwardly to the man in the cart that's staring expectantly at him. "Um. I'll have what he's having."

"Two chilidogs, coming right up!"

Silver watches the man work dazedly, before he feels a hand clamp onto his shoulder and he nearly jumps out of his skin. When he turns, he's met with Sonic, dangerously close to him and frowning uneasily as he scans his features.

The speedster mutters, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"For sure."

He doesn't seem entirely convinced, as he relents with a lingering frown. "… Okay, then."

The vender hands them the two dogs and Sonic thanks him as he hands over some rings, before two leave to go search for a bench to sit on. Eventually they do, although it's a little weathered and the wood looks nearly rotted.

They sit in a mutual, sleepy silence for a while. Sonic greedily scarfs down his chilidog, and Silver slumps in his seat and picks meaninglessly at the soft bun as he meets the new resolve that he isn't particularly hungry at all. In fact, if he'd had any sort of appetite back in Chun-nan, it's long gone now.

It's something about Capital City. And he means nothing of offense to the residents of it, or to the people that built its infrastructure, it's just—the noise only worsens his headache, reshaping it from some mild, muffled sore in the back of his head, to this awful, festering thing that presses so hard against his temples that he thinks his head might explode.

The sun feels like a demon in the heavens that bares down cruelly on them. Silver squirms as its scalding rays spread languidly down his limbs and soak into his skin, threatening to burn his insides. It's so bright and vibrant and normally it'd be something of a peaceable sight, a constant warm glow in the beautiful clear skies, but now it feels like a vortex of fiery doom that follows him everywhere he goes.

He realizes, all too late, that his anxiety has gotten the better of him yet again and his hotdog bun has been smushed as a result from his clenched hand, nothing but a pitiful holster for the chilidog. Sonic is staring at him oddly, deep unease in his eyes.

"You gonna eat that?" he asks, like some lame attempt to lighten the mood, maybe, and that's when the guilt wrenches up in Silver's gut because _shit,_ Sonic's probably sick of him being this constant dead weight. Relentlessly anxious and distraught and too incapable of handling himself to even regain control over his own powers.

Silver clenches his jaw and decides to concentrate on fighting back his own tears, rather than voicing a reply. He feels strong fingers weave around his own and squeeze reassuringly; he sniffles.

Sonic says, in his perfectly low and soothing and beautiful voice, "What's wrong?"

And he can't take it.

A sob slips out of him and Silver just shrivels up, curling against Sonic and forgetting for just a moment how shameful and embarrassing it must be to do so, because fuck this, he's so tired of trying to just _be_ and all he wants right now is to be held. His vision is clouded in this thick, muddled film of tears that make all of his surroundings blur into a painful white noise that drives into his eyes and ears like needles. By this point his shoulders have started shaking and he's become riddled with hiccups and sobs and he knows he's too far gone at this point. He doesn't remember the last time he's cried this hard—he hasn't since he was just a child.

It registers beneath all of the misery wrapped around him in a thick cocoon that Sonic's arms have shifted to draw around him and pull him to his side. He also feels a slight warmth spread over both of them, sudden and somewhat frightening, but he's too lost in his outburst of emotions to really react properly to it.

Silver is trapped in this gross, wretched haze for what feels like an eternity, until he gains a hold of himself enough to hear Sonic whispering gentle words into his ears, and he recognizes with slight confusion that they aren't on a bench anymore, but sitting in grass, and that all is now silent.

He thinks maybe they're back in Chun-nan, briefly, before he swipes some moisture from his eyes and sees it's still daytime, so it mustn't be.

Sonic is still cradling him close even as he starts to steady his breathing.

"Wh—What is this?" he manages, his voice heavy and shaky.

And he doesn't even need a reply—which figures, because it's not like Sonic actually responds anyways—as he's greeted with the sight of three small, dwarf-like creatures no larger than puppy dogs that come waddling over to the pair. _Chao._

They crawl up to the hedgehogs and burrow into their laps, cooing like children and pawing at them with their stubby little hands. Silver smiles hesitantly and pats one on the head, his heart warming a bit in his chest when it nuzzles against his palm. Its skin is smooth and slightly slimy, as though coated in a thin film of some sort of liquid, almost like a toad.

When Sonic finally does speak, his cheek is resting on Silver's shoulder, and he's still hugging him with a determination like he beliefs Silver will wilt and die right there if he lets go. "Sorry if I freaked you out, back there."

Silver's tongue struggles to work. He pinches the cheeks of one of the Chao, dotingly. "Huh?"

"In the city," the hero clarifies. Silver feels some more tension leave him at the feel of Sonic's chest rumbling as he speaks, pressed to his side. "If I'd have known you'd get so overwhelmed there…"

"It's not your fault," he says, automatically. From the position they're sitting in, they can't exactly meet each other's eyes, but Silver still feels uneasy, like he's dancing around this unspoken thing, too scared to tell Sonic anything beneath surface level because then the dam is just going to break again and his emotions will burst out in a tumultuous wave.

But then Sonic sits up and withdraws from their embrace (Silver has to ignore the way his heart sinks at that), and he turns so that they can look directly at one another. The speedster seems ignorant of how annoyed the Chao are that their bed just decided to move; he interlaces his fingers with Silver's, and his touch is featherlike—deliberately aware of how tender he has to be, given the psychic's weakened state.

He says, "Tell me," and Silver thinks, the words clawing their way up his throat and prying at his sealed lips, as those beautiful, trusting green eyes bore into him, that maybe he will.

"I still think about it." It comes out quiet and mumbled.

Sonic frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Iblis."

That word scorches his tongue. Silver flinches impulsively as it slips from his mouth, and he shuts his eyes for a moment, grimacing at the explosion of orange and cinders and smoldering ash beneath his eyelids. He feels Sonic's fingers curl just minutely tighter around his own.

He takes a moment to swallow the bile curdling in the base of his esophagus. Exhales.

"Sometimes—sometimes it's fine, y'know. Most days I feel fine, and my powers aren't… goofed up, or whatever. But—" his voice cracks, "—But sometimes when I'm back in the future, and there's some new evil lurking around and I'm the last man standing, or—or when I'm helping you fight Eggman and his machine explodes—" and this time Sonic flinches, clearly reminiscing of the other day, when this whole debacle began, "—or even just… When I'm in a really loud place, or I see a lot of skyscrapers, or it gets really hot, I just… It's all I can think about. Just flames and death and disaster."

Silver draws in a trembling breath. His throat feels raw and scratchy, now that it's all just _out there._ He's never talked about any of this with anyone before, so it's—it's terrifying.

Sonic asks, mutely, "Can I hold you again?" and Silver nods and he does and it feels, just barely, a little less terrifying. The blue hedgehog scoots forward in the soft grass of the garden, and wraps his arms around Silver's shoulders, and pulls him in close, letting the white hedgehog rest his face against his own shoulder.

He feels the gentle press of lips on his cheek. Silver jumps a little, not anticipating that action and his natural awkwardness getting the better of him as heat skitters up the back of his neck. Sonic seems to notice, his grip loosening noticeably like a silent way of telling Silver he can pull away from their hug, if it's too much.

"Sorry," he mutters into Silver's ear, and he nearly shudders from how warm his breath feels against his face. "I get affectionate. With, uh, the people I care about. I forget it's not exactly normal to… kiss your friend."

Silver swallows thickly, but doesn't make to move. Sonic's body is soft and pliant against his, and the speedster has begun to trace soothing patterns into his back. "I-It's okay. I don't mind, actually."

(The word _friend _ricochets painfully around his skull, and he grinds his teeth together. Steels himself.)

"I… I know we defeated Solaris years ago. And I see so many different apocalypses, all the time. But I just—you have to understand that I lived in that city my whole life, up until I was sent back in time, when I first met Mephiles. All I knew for _years_ was… isolation and fire and destruction. It was horrible."

When he lifts his head up to look at Sonic again, he feels the other boy move his hands to cup them around Silver's face. "I know. You don't have to explain yourself, Silv. It's okay to still be… messed up from that."

He screws up his face and clenches his fists at his sides, pinpricks stirring in his palms from the sensation. "I-I just—I see you and everyone else, and you're always so happy and strong, and I can't help but think there's just something wrong with me. Why can't I just do the one thing I'm supposed to do? All I want is to save the future, I just wanna do my part, but I just—"

"Silver." Sonic's demeanor has shifted into something firm and bitter, and he almost shrinks at the sight, because he's clearly upset him in some way. But then—"There is nothing wrong with you, I promise. Look, I get scared too. Sometimes I have nightmares. Sometimes I don't think I'm good enough either, and that's okay. Neither of us are ever gonna be perfect." He smiles; it looks watery and meek. "We just have to do the best we can, alright?"

The hero takes one of Silver's hands—which is trembling, he now notices—and lifts it up to gingerly kiss his knuckles. It's so charming and gentlemanly that Silver just about melts.

"And _you_ need to take a break," he declares, grinning. "You don't get a say. You're gonna take a vacation and crash at my place for as long as you need. Your powers need the rest, and so do you."

Silver feels strangely paralyzed, with the way Sonic just smiles at him, _beams _at him, tenderly grasping his hand, with those ridiculously stunning emerald eyes—and he needs a minute to catch his breath again. He wipes the lingering tears from his face with his free hand, and runs his tongue over his teeth as he contemplates his next words.

"Um. Can I—Can I kiss you?"

Sonic immediately softens, taken by surprise. And then this even larger, dopey grin spreads across his face. "You don't have to ask."

He wordlessly leans in, letting his eyes fall shut, a pure feeling of wonder and peace consuming him whole as Sonic's lips meet his, and they fit together seamlessly. Sonic runs a hand along his jaw and another into his plush chest fur, and he tastes just like Silver always imagined he would, like berries and roasted hazelnuts and so absolutely _Sonic. _It lasts for a little while, soft and longing, and they only stop when they decide they should probably breathe again.

Silver doesn't bother to open his eyes. He simply leans his forehead against Sonic's and giggles elatedly, grasping his hands in his own and becoming numb to the dull pain in his palms for just a little bit.

Because now, with his eyes shut and with Sonic here, he doesn't see bursting flames and cascading ashes. He hears the faint trickle of the waterfall across the garden, and tastes the lingering flavor of wild berries on his tongue, and feels Sonic's hands interwoven with his, and, should he choose to open his eyes, he knows he would see nothing but a bright smile and baby blue skies.

* * *

**silver needs a Break jfc. ****sonic is happy to oblige tho ;)**

**(anyways TEK ILU HAPPY BDAY)**


End file.
